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rHE EUROPEAN 
WAR 

Its Causes, Its Surprises 
and Its Lessons 




By 

PERCY G. GROSS, M.A 



THE EUROPEAN 
WAR 

ItslGauses, Its Surprises 
and Its Lessons 




By 



PERCY G. CROSS, M.A 



Copyright, 1916 
Percy G. Cross, M.A. 



APR 3 1916 

rf'CI,A428363 






TO "DAD" 

A 

DEMOCRAT OF DEMOCRATS 



FOREWORD 

THE birth-pains of a new era are upon us. Suf- 
fering and sacrifice lend vision to life. "Apart 
from the shedding of blood there is no remission." 
Not one shall escape, for "no man liveth to himself 
and no man dieth to himself." Each of us must 
shoulder his part! Each of us must do his share, 
for the Kingdom cometh! 

Before a great attack in this war a board ap- 
peared above the German trenches bearing the 
words, "The English are Fools!" No bullet an- 
swered such abuse. Soon the board reappeared 
with this addition, "The French are Fools." The 
silence of contempt was upon the Allied trenches. 
The board came up again, with the third line read- 
ing, "We are Fools." That wordy bomb caused 
excitement a-plenty! The climax was capped by 
the board's fourth statement, "Why not all go 
home?" Why not? War — what for? 

A soldier, speaking of the wounded and the 
dying on the battlefield, said: "After the battle we 
couldn't hear ourselves talk any more in the trenches 
for the cries of the wounded. It was one great, 
uninterrupted wail. We could make out appeals, 
prayers, calls for help, women's names. Then, lit- 
tle by little, silence came again, as many of them 
died. What we heard sound longest on the battle- 



FOREWORD 



field, from one end to the other, was the word 
'mother'! It is always those who are dying who 
call like that. We know that well now." War — 
what for? 

Plainly have I spoken in the following pages out 
of a full heart. Ugly facts have been bared. I 
pray that God may use this humble effort to compel 
soberness, righteousness and godliness in this pres- 
ent world. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
inherit the earth," said our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Again, 'Tor all they that take the sword shall 
perish with the sword," said the same true voice. 

Almighty God, open our eyes that we may see 
our duty, and give us the strength and courage to 
do our duty even unto death. In the name of Him 
who died that we might live, even Jesus Christ. 

San Antonio, Tex. Percy G. Cross. 



"THE EUROPEAN WAR" 

I 
ITS CAUSES 

WAR is hell! War is legalized murder. No 
right is ever fundamentally advanced by 
might. You are here invited and urged to think 
and act now ere it is too late, and you be compelled 
to think amid death and destruction. There was 
never a just war! Call not a war of shot and shell, 
good! Our own Revolutionaary War was at bot- 
tom a class war in favor of Colonial and English 
capitalists. The great Civil War of the States was 
waged in behalf of property rights, not human 
rights. The arbitrament of reason and moral sua- 
sion must, in the final ultimate, conquer. To that 
end may we serve, sacrifice and suffer. 

The gory spectacle of the European war is 
before us. What caused it? First, class hatred! 
The so-called blue-blooded, wealthy, ruling class in 
the central empires of Europe began to see the 
handwriting on the wall. The rise of the common 
people was an ever-increasing menace to their long- 
cherished and sacred privileges. An ominous under- 
tone of discontent was shaking the foundation of 
class privileges, and something had to be done. 
War was the ready remedy. All sincere students of 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



humanity and righteousness are amazed to read the 
cold-blooded statements of more than one military- 
writer of middle Europe offering war as a panacea 
for the "ungrateful complaints of the ignorant 
plebeians" ! ''Set the people at war and they will 
forget their troubles," was the advice of more than 
one astute leader. War alone will stop the rise of 
the common people, and beat back Republican 
France, and give a new lease of life to the self- 
styled patrician class. Have you ever thought that 
in all that has been said, and is being said, in news- 
papers and magazines, some unseen power is sup- 
pressing or obscuring the thought that "the Repub- 
lican France is fighting for her life against Im- 
perial Germany"? The French RepubHc stands for 
liberty, equality and fraternity, the triple bete noir 
to all kings and kaisers. Queen Victoria, good 
woman that she was, hated Republican France. 
This hate is not dead ! Queen Victoria is ! The 
hate lives on. She nor her class ever heard "that 
ranter Spurgeon." Republican France, the political 
foster-mother to this republic of the United States, 
girded with the armor of Democracy, and inspired 
by her great watchwords, holds Imperial Germany 
at bay. Imperialism has made its bid for world 
power too late in the economy of God. The dawn 
of Democracy is shedding its light upon the dark 
places of man's inequalities, forepointing of its full- 
orbed power and reign. That was a pregnant dec- 
laration of Simon Peter when he said: "I perceive 
that Gk)d is no respecter of persons, but in every 
nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 



ness is acceptable with him." This wipes out class 
distinctions, and its attendant evil, class privileges. 
Second cause, racial animus. We, in this 
country, can hardly understand the deadly animosity 
these European races hold against each other. The 
assassination of the Austrian archduke and his 
wife was but the match to the powder-house. It was 
but a straw on the turbulent currents of race pride 
and hatred. It is difficult to grasp, for example, 
the "prayer" of Germany, the nation of science and 
philosophy, "God punish England!" One can al- 
most feel in that terse cry the throb of a burning 
hate. Italians and Austrians, Bulgers and Serbs, 
Turks, Slavs and Teutons stand stripped of the 
trappings of civilization, laying bare all the primor- 
dial lusts of their primitive forebears. In this 
maelstrom of races hate burns like a lust. What 
an awful power this is to some unscrupulous "patri- 
otic" statesman, ready for instant use in pitting 
race against race, and nation against nation, thus 
fastening the galling yoke tighter than ever upon 
the necks of the masses. What damnable crimes 
are committed in the name of "patriotism"! If it 
were not so tragic, it would be laughable. "Hate! 
kill! and be a good patriot!" Think not, for a 
second, that we are entirely free of this deadly 
racial virus. What is your attitude to the "Chink" 
and the "Jap"? Is it possible to set us aflame 
against those "damn Japs"? We are human as are 
the others. Here, then, is vast need for mental 
discipline, self-restraint and education. Ignorance 
is the blight of the masses of Europe. So igno- 



10 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

ranee of "this man's country" and "our Govern- 
ment" can be our blight. Who's your boss? Who 
does your political thinking for you? Who gets 
your vote, and hoiv? Americans, use your heads! 
Third cause, the economic interest. Here, per- 
haps, is the chief cause. Germany needed more and 
larger markets for her rapidly increasing output of 
goods. Her demand for "a place in the sun" was 
the setting forth of her economic interest in terms 
of Scripture. Having successfully met England in 
trade battle, and proving her strength against 
American competition, she was determined upon a 
world conquest for world trade. The talk about 
taking Belgium and Holland was not so much for 
North Sea ports as it was for over the seas col- 
onies. The competitive system demands a rape 
policy, be it Belgium or the open door of China.. 
There is a dual aspect to this war. The lesser is 
that of Republican France and Democratic England 
against Imperial Germany. The greater aspect is 
that of Commercial England against Economic Ger- 
many. The English Allies control 50 per cent, of 
the world's trade. The Teutonic Allies, 18 per cent. 
So powerful is this economic interest that, amid all 
the terrific straits of war, both Germany and 
England are laying world plans for trade. Should 
Imperial Germany be defeated. Economic Germany 
will stand girded for a trade war that defies the 
imagination to describe. Being upon the same 
economic basis as Germany, what is to prevent us 
from being plunged into a world war? If Germany 
takes Canada, then what? Suppose Germany enters 



THE EUROPEAN WAR U 

South America somewhat as she did China, what 
will we do with our Monroe Doctrine? If her 
economic interest dictates such a policy, she will 
make that entrance at any cost. You think the 
warring nations will be exhausted at the close of 
this war? The principal belligerents will never be 
so strong. The only time in all our own history 
when we were in a position to lay down a policy to 
a foreign nation was at the close of our war be- 
tween the States, when we had a million and a half 
of veterans to make good our demands. We told 
France to get out of Mexico, and she got! If, in 
the interests of trade, Japan closes to us the open 
door of China, what will our captains of industry 
do? We have been brought to the verge of war 
with bleeding Mexico because of the economic (oil) 
interests of a few citizens of this United States. 
Think on that! 

The competitive basis of trade is the curse of 
the nations. This past year we boast of as being 
the year of plenty and prosperity. Yet millions are 
in need at home, and we cry to high heaven, not 
to right the wrongs of the needy masses, but for 
ships and markets for a teeming surplus of foods 
and goods! On top of that comes the demand that 
the United States Government protect these ships 
and keep open these markets in the name of unholy 
dividends! Why sell abroad when poverty exists 
at home? Why create a surplus for foreign trade 
and at home the cupboard is bare? Our glorious 
Mother Hubbard policy will land us headlong into 
trouble inside of ten years unless we reconstruct 



12 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

our economic system from the foundation up. Com- 
petition is the curse of trade. Q)-operation is the 
hope of the people. North Dakota is a first hard- 
wheat State. Twice the people voted for the State 
to build terminal elevators. The first election gave 
a vote of 76 per cent., and the second of 83 per 
cent., in favor of this wise bit of co-operation. To- 
day the people still have the joy of having voted 
twice for State built and owned elevators, and that's 
all they have so far as solid results are concerned. 
Why? Because the economic interests of the mill- 
ing and railroad magnates demand privately owned 
elevators. So simple, is it not? Was it the Bard 
of Avon or a political boss who said, "What fools 
these mortals be!"? 

The story of North Dakota can be duplicated 
time and again in city, State and national affairs 
where the will of the people has been sidetracked 
for the economic interests of the owing few. The 
day of reckoning gathers when a longsuffering pro- 
letariat will use their heads and quit being used 
by another head. 



II 

ITS SURPRISES 

THE surprises of this war are both significant 
and suggestive. As individuals, and as a 
nation, we can profit by them. Will we? It's up to 
you, voters! 

Europe was an armed camp to prevent war! 
David Starr Jordan returned from Europe in the 
summer of 1914 and declared war impossible. Be- 
fore the summer was ended, war in full blast had 
begun. The sophism, "In time of peace prepare 
for war," was accepted as a fundamental truth by 
Europe, and they got war. Great standing armies 
we now see, in the lurid glare of the world's great- 
est war, do not mean peace. They do mean war: 
potential and actual. The Socratic dictum, "Like 
begets like," is a truism all must accept. A stand- 
ing army is a standing menace. A standing army is 
war in statu quo! One of the sure tests of life is 
power, its use or abuse. Given a man with mental 
and financial might, and he will "ride" you should 
his interest demand it. True of an individual, it is 
just as true of a corporation or a nation. The 
proof of this is seen in the United States in one 
name, "Standard Oil," and in Europe, "Germany!" 
Let the people rule! People! you are sleeping on 
your rights, and that means you! 



14 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

The "come back" of France has made the 
nations sit up and take notice! We had judged 
France by the Parisian standard. The strength of 
a nation is not in the city, but in the country! The 
cities are the open sores of a nation's sin. We had 
thought the French to be fickle and given to fancies. 
France to-day is the one nation with a national 
ideal that dares to put it into practice. With her 
great watchwords of fraternity, liberty and equality, 
her citizen soldiers have not only turned the tide of 
Germany militarism, but are the only soldiers fight- 
ing on German soil. Republican France, possessed 
with a glorious spirit of comradeship, sounded the 
death-knell of militarism! La Belle France has come 
back and made good! She has written a new page 
in history. May we be worthy of her fellowship! 

A sad surprise was the rape of Belgium. Bel- 
gium, protected with treaty rights with Germany, 
France and England, was declared safe, and out of 
the zone of warfare. History has repeated itself! 
Belgium again is the cock-pit of Europe. So a 
treaty, no matter with what high-sounding words 
it may be composed, is but a bit of paper to be 
destroyed when economic interests demand it! A 
treaty between nations is no stronger than the moral 
ideal of the high contracting parties. Might makes 
no treaty right ! An international court of arbitration 
is a high-sounding farce, and a beguiling form, 
when nations sit there with ideals and interests as 
wide apart as the poles. One of the fundamental 
reasons of the long peace, with its accomplished 
acts of arbitration, between the United States and 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 15 

Great Britain, is because of the dominancy of the 
Anglo-Saxon spirit of what we call "a square deal," 
and what the Britisher calls "fair play." A treaty 
presupposes the rights of two or more. Arms 
make no treaty! Arms make war. Only ideals 
embodied make peace pacts practicable. 

The astounding surprise was the preparedness 
of Germany. For forty years had she been getting 
ready. Yes, Germany sat at The Hague tribunals of 
peace, but Germany took no chances ! Gas machines 
captured by the French in German trenches bore 
the damning inscription: "Improved from model of 
1912 from model of 1908." The Hamburg-Ameri- 
can line was signed up for business in war a year 
before war began. Germany built railroads first 
for strategic purposes, and second for trade. Then, 
too, Germany allowed no private interests to water 
her railroads! She preferred watering them her- 
self — when it was necessary! As with the steel 
ways, so with the dirt and water ways, the German 
Government laid a strong, sure hand upon them for 
military purposes when necessary, for trade always ! 
Witness the Kiel Canal in the light of preparedness. 
It has saved the German navy and baffled the might 
of Britannia, who rules the waves! Germany de- 
veloped an espionage system that secured first-hand 
data upon nations and peoples clear down to the 
business leaders of a community of a few hundreds. 
Germany left nothing to chance. She coppered all 
her bets! In the light of facts at hand we now 
know that Germany knew more about the United 
States than 'Uis'' knew of ourselves ! ! 



16 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

Germany prepared by going even deeper than all 
this. She wiped out her slum districts for the wel- 
fare of the nation. The slum spawns and breeds 
vice and disease. Strong men and sturdy women 
breed first-class soldier material. The slum gives 
chalk for bone and water for blood! Hence, the 
Government took a prime interest in the housing of 
the nation's toilers. This she backed by making 
working conditions physically perfect. No factory 
could be located where it could vitiate the atmos- 
phere of the workers' homes. Nor could any fac- 
tory be located where the health of the workers 
would be jeopardized. 

Germany demanded men that were, as Darwin 
has it, "good animals." That meant good mothers. 
Thus maternity was protected by pension as well as 
by medication and hygiene. So the German public- 
school system, the peer of school systems, was 
developed from the kindergarten up to the intensely 
practical and scientific trade schools. The budding 
genius was made to feel that "the nation is behind 
you" ! Do this for the Fatherland ! Thus was Ger- 
many socialized, giving birth to that soul-stirring 
slogan, "Germany over all!" Small wonder that 
she has the world held at bay! The one rift in the 
lute is that all of this great and good work was 
done in the interest of militarism and in the name 
of Kultur! Take out "militarism" and put in its 
place Christ, and for Kultur, humanity, and the 
social revolution has arrived! 

In awful contrast to the preparedness of Ger- 
many was the unpreparedness of England. But for 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 17 

her navy she would have become a second Belgium. 
England expected to muddle through! She left 
everything to chance! England made preparation 
by permitting the worst slum districts on earth in 
London. In that city alone, nigh one million 
men and women never know the solid satisfaction 
of three full meals a day! Bleary-eyed, narrow- 
chested, shorn of health and ambition, damned to 
the abyss of poverty, intelligence going, inspiration 
gone! Over against that ponder well this: Over 
one hundred thousand able-bodied Englishmen put 
themselves down on the census lists, "no occupa- 
tion!" Gentlemen, bah Jove!!! Many of them 
live on vast landed estates lives of indolent nothing- 
ness, with town houses and week-end fetes galore! 
England prepared by permitting the Dives life of 
sumptuous idleness at one end of the social scale 
and the Lazarus life of starvation and sores at the 
other! In ratio the same conditions abounded in 
Liverpool, Birmingham and other cities. Then the 
war fell like a bolt out of the blue! Then England, 
in her dire extremity, cried to these pariahs of her 
social system, these "down and outs," these toilers, 
wage slaves, all, "Enlist; fight for us! Your 
country needs you!" Small wonder that many a 
soul said in bitter anger, "You had no use for me 
before the war! It's your war! You fight it!" 
More than one brain soddened by unjust industrial 
conditions blindly reasoned, "I would sooner be gov- 
erned by a righteous Germany than an unrighteous 
England." 

We beheld the unholy spectacle of lords and 



18 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

ladies of the land, supported by bishops of religion, 
not Christianity, upholding the liquor traffic, when 
the few who realized the full truth, urged the wip- 
ing out of the traffic in the name of preparedness. 
But the economic interests of the king and the rul- 
ing class dictated that the "pubs" stay on, for king 
and gentlemen few own breweries and pubs! And 
they call this "Merry England"! What saith the 
Word? "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for 
whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap!" 
And England is reaping! And thunder it forth, 
this United States is sowing for just such a reaping! 
An expected surprise was the breakdown of 
Marxian Socialism. European Socialists had de- 
clared against war. To-day we behold the sad 
spectacle of comrades in arms against comrades 
fighting for kaiser, king and empire. The skep- 
tical materialism of German thought has been a 
blight to the social Democracy of Europe, and even 
to this country. Marxian Socialism has the idea 
without the ideal. It has the form of Democracy, 
but lacks the spirit of Democracy. The late Dr. 
Herron plead for the spiritualization of Socialism. 
The last words that flowed from his gifted pen, as 
he neared the portals of death, throbbed with in- 
spiration for another world advance. Of late, Mr. 
O'Brien, the well-known Canadian Socialist, has 
resigned from the movement because of the ultra- 
materialism foisted upon the social revolution by 
just such leaders as Marx. The sympathetic student 
realizes that environment and racial affection play 
a deep part in the lives of all men. When some 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 19 

Russian or German Jew, through suffering and sac- 
rifice, sees the Hght of the coming social revolution, 
and, at the same time, sees the so-called church used 
as the tool of the ruling classes to hold in subjec- 
tion the lowly masses, he is mighty apt to hate all 
that looks like church or pertains to religion. 
More than one such spirit has landed on our shores 
with the wrongs and persecutions of that church 
festering like a poisoned barb in his soul! When 
such men, by sheer force of intellect, achieved 
leadership of the Socialistic party in this country, 
they tinged its thought with the drab of their own 
bitter memories of church and religion. If Blatch- 
ford, in England, and Bebel, in Germany, are true 
products of European Socialism, we in America are 
apprehensive of such a movement! Social Democ- 
racy in this United States demands a divorce of 
such leadership for victory. Give Socialism the 
martyr spirit of Jesus Christ and the battle is 
won. 

Another surprise akin to this was the break- 
down of the state church. Churchianity was never 
seen to be such a farce and a failure as now! The 
theologians of Germany, France and England are 
busy proving the right of their respective causes. 
Government-supported clergy, giving aid and com- 
fort to the ruling powers, is a spectacle for men and 
angels! Don't blame Christianity! Blame churchi- 
anity! Consciously and unconsciously, the economic 
interest of these priestly hirelings has held them true 
to the hand that feeds them. History affords no sad- 
der story than that of the clergy of the state church 



20 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

taking sides with the ruling class against the toil- 
ing masses. The one fell spot on the great life 
of Luther was his arousing the conscience of the 
enslaved peasants, then, affrighted by what he had 
started, leaving them to their fate by going over 
to the side of Junker class, the class that is the curse 
of modern Germany. Invariably (there are noble 
exceptions to all rules) the priests of churchianity 
have played the hand of the owing few against the 
disowned many. The need is just as great for 
religious righteousness as for industrial, political 
and social righteousness. The four are wedded. 
What God hath joined together let not man cast 
asunder ! 

As Jesus Christ of yore, with scourge and sting- 
ing invective, cleansed the physical temple of traders 
and money-mongers, so to-day the spiritual temple is 
in sore need of the scourge of repentance that will 
make the crooked paths straight and bring in the 
acceptable year of the Lord. 

A sobering surprise to Germany, and one that 
has given food for reflection to all, was the loyalty 
of Britons to the British Empire. With war in 
Ireland, the scream of the suffragist shocking the 
tight little island, ominous unrest in India and 
sullen discontent in South Africa, it did seem, if 
ever Germany were to strike Republican France, 
and everlastingly put the "fixings" to Democratic 
England, that now was the opportune time. With 
the first shot of battle the scream of the suffragist 
was silenced, down went the arms of Irish malcon- 
tents, the cry of India for the Indians was "put 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 21 

on the shelf," and Irish, Welsh, Scotch, Boers, In- 
dians became Britons springing to the support of 
one flag, presenting shoulder to shoulder a solid front 
to their common enemy. 

The whole world has been given the sobering 
thought that the Anglo-Saxon spirit, strain, blood, 
call it what you will, rises supreme over likes and 
dislikes, and compels a sacrifice with a smile of the 
heart's blood. Look at them in line: Republican 
Australia, Single Tax New Zealand, Independent 
South Africa, Yankee Canada and Polyglot India 
backing up John, Mac and Mike of the British 
Isles. Said the great apostle to the Gentiles: "For 
who among men knoweth the things of a man save 
the spirit of man which is in man !" 

Sydney Brooks, in a fine essay on "The New 
England," affirms that the English caste system is 
dead, and that a new Democracy, glorious in new- 
found strength, is being brought forth through the 
throes of the war. 

The one surprising discovery to us in America is 
the Hyphenated American. Naturalized or native, 
there can be, and in the very logic of affairs there 
must be, but one fatherland for all of us who live 
in the good old United States. While there may be 
in memory hands across the seas, there must be, 
in practice and in principle, "hands off" when 
American ideals and institutions are concerned. No 
foreign power, religious or political, must in any 
way meddle in our affairs. The unholy triple alli- 
ance of Roman Catholic, Infidel and Jew against 
the American public school and the Bible in the 



22 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

school must cease. The time has come for all of 
us to ''line up" or get out. Kindly, and none the 
less firmly, if you don't like our ways, our ideals and 
our institutions, then go back where you came 
from, before you dare to foist upon us your rotten 
and rotting Old World trappings. Here church 
and state are forever divorced. This, all of what- 
soever heath and belief need to realize fully. The 
day of the German-American, the Franco-American 
and the Anglo-American is past! There must be, 
without any prevarication, mental reservation or 
equivocation, an allegiance to this United States 
that is first and supreme! "My country, in war 
or in peace, right or wrong, my country!" Our 
country, with its rights and its wrongs, must be 
our prime concern. The rights we love. The 
wrongs we will right. So we will do our own 
house-cleaning ! The U. S. over all ! 



Ill 

ITS LESSONS 

THIS war is an awful calamity, but the calamity 
would be even worse should we not profit by 
the lessons this war is writing in the heart's blood 
of the best manhood of Europe. God is going to 
have his way among the peoples of earth. God is 
speaking to us in terms of pain, sacrifice and sor- 
row. May we live and learn to the redemption of 
the race and the salvation of society. 

No nation has a monopoly on bravery. More 
or less we have prided ourselves on our "nerve" 
and ability to "get away" with any one who dared 
to have the temerity to attack us. Germany real- 
izes to-day that little Belgium, with its toiling citi- 
zens, has placed in history a page of Spartan 
bravery surpassed by none. Who said the "Dagos" 
could not fight? The superhuman obstacles the 
Italian soldiers are overcoming amid the Austrian 
Alps defies description. The underfed and over- 
worked factory hands of "Lunnontown" stopped 
the onslaught of the flower of Prussia's best. 
Given leadership and a cause, and the despised of 
earth, Anteus-like, rise to conquer or die! 

This war teaches that Government ownership 
is both a necessity and a howling success. The 
calamity growlers are silenced. IndividuaHstic Eng- 



24 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

land has joined the procession of Socialized states! 
The world is coming to an end! Glory be!! It 
is a solemn fact worthy of your serious attention 
that the one reason why Germany has made such a 
wonderful fight is that Germany is supreme among 
the nations in Government ownership. Well, we 
are just as smart as Germany. If Germany can 
do it, we can go her one better. That is a doc- 
trine of preparedness we will have to come to, 
either in peace or amid the bloody carnage of the 
disaster of war! Take your choice, citizens! 

Now the nations are employing millions of men 
in the task of destruction. This in the name of 
Mars! The war over, these milHons will have to 
have jobs! The only sane thing to do is for the 
same nations to put these men to work in the tasks 
of construction ! This in the name of Peace, say 
the Prince of Peace! What a glorious prospect! 
So the war clouds have a silver lining. And who 
says "No" to this? Those captains of industry 
who have their hands in their own pockets and 
the pockets of the people too ! There are excep- 
tions, of course, but the buccaneer crew of Modern 
Industrialism is not going to give up the ship and 
its mighty sailing privileges without a fight. Your 
Rockefellers, and your Morgans, et al, will scuttle 
the ship called "Great Nation" before they will 
give up their property rights and special privi- 
leges so sacred to them all. That the great inter- 
ests are alive to all of this, witness the "lordly" 
concessions they are so graciously making to the 
humble workingman in a few cents increase of 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 25 

pay and an hour less of working-day! Don't let 
this ''fool" you into a false security. These con- 
cessions are but sops to appease your hunger for 
righteousness and stave off the day of the Lord 
when "the meek shall inherit the earth," and when 
equal rights for all and special privileges for none 
will prevail from ''Dan to Beer-sheba" ! 

One of the greatest lessons of this war is that 
science and worldly wisdom is a snare and a delu- 
sion. Germany easily holds first place as the great- 
est scientific nation of history. In trade she was 
slowly and surely capturing the world. Her flag 
successfully challenged that of England upon the 
Seven Seas ! Puffed with pride, like an overgrown 
schoolboy, we thought we knew it all ! But the war 
broke loose, and when the British blockade began to 
get in its work, we began to howl for dyestuffs, 
sundry acids and a hundred and one things that 
were indispensable for our industrial welfare. Ger- 
many was doing postgraduate work in electrical 
engineering, while we have been grubbing along in 
the "prep" school! And the joke is on us, for we 
thought we were in the lead, of course!! What do 
we lead in to-day? Brag! Dollar diplomacy! And 
Dough-nuts ! 

Germany's success was her undoing. She 
erected a new god for her worship, and called it 
Kultur! The might of superior wisdom deluded 
her rulers into a world-conquest dream for Kul- 
tur's sake! The peoples of earth needed en- 
lightenment! Science, as proven by Teutonic 
thought, ordained this. Scientifically, such a dream 



26 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

was correct. Science oft rides rough-shod over 
sentiment and love. Science says, ''Chloroform 
the aged and the unfit." Germany made the com- 
mon blunder of all scientists and philosophers of 
earth by putting the head before the heart. We 
come to righteousness and life heart first! You 
may snort at sentiment and love, but they are the 
greatest forces in the human breast, and to ignore 
them means defeat. 

Prof. Ernst Haeckel, whose god is Monism, 
affirms that this war has dispelled certain illusions; 
as, ''the existence of a providential God, of pre- 
destination and of the immortality of the soul." 
Here, again, is seen the deadly dogmatism of the 
Teutonic mind. Dr. Samuel Schulman, a Jewish 
rabbi, attends to Haeckel in the following words: 
"Professor Haeckel is a type of scientist that be- 
comes a dogmatist on matters on which he can 
speak with no more authority than any one else. 
I will tell you what illusion this war has swept 
away — the flattering unction to our soul which a 
materialistic science has dinned into our ears for 
the last fifty years ; namely, that men become better 
and more civilized because of the mastery over 
nature, which enables them to increase their ma- 
terial comforts. This war proves that the civiliza- 
tion of the head is but the smallest part of human 
culture, and, if ever brutal wars are to end, hu- 
manity's heart must be educated. Men must take 
seriously and exemplify in their lives the faith in 
a God that wants them to love one another. It 
is Haeckel's gods that have been swept away by 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 27 

this war, and not the God of Judaism and Chris- 
tianity." When this Jewish rabbi says, "God, and 
right, and love, and the value of the spirit, are 
realities, despite the war," let all the people say, 
Amen! 

Franz Weller, in "Germany's Religious Awa- 
kening," tells of a German soldier, a man of cul- 
ture, coming back from the war front wounded, 
crying, "With Goethe's Taust' I went out: with 
the New Testament I came back." A German 
Socialist of reddish hue cried, "I am going to go 
to church again. Not lehrt beten (Need teaches 
to pray)"! 

Dr. Ludwig Schuller, of Cologne, dared to tell 
the truth when he preached: "Through the love of 
pleasure and luxury, and the service of Mammon, 
our nation began to degenerate. In leading homes 
and circles questionable dances were had and ap- 
plauded. A new kind of god was wanted, an 
'impersonal god,' who hears no prayers and does 
not guide the world according to his will with an 
almighty hand. Then suddenly the lightning fell! 
The war came, a scourge for the German people." 
An indictment of Germany, these burning words 
are no less an indictment of this United States! 
We have all of Germany's sins, with this terrible 
addition: Our hands are full of blood-money! To 
us the war is one great money-making affair. 
While the dogs of war were fighting, we have 
taken the "bone of trade"! In the sight of God, 
we are storing up wrath against the day of God's 
wrath. Our preparedness talk is concerned with 



28 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

the getting of trade and the capturing of world 
markets. Just as sure as you are reading these 
words, will come the judgment of the Almighty 
upon you, and all of us, unless we repent with a 
repentance that will bring forth fruits worthy of 
repentance ! 

From the viewpoint of science, Germany has 
fought her fight perfectly. She put war on the 
basis of science. All things were reduced to the 
logic of science. So Louvain was sacked, and 
Rheims was shelled, and the rest of us gasped! 
The ''Lusitania" was sunk, and Edith Cavell was 
condemned at 5 p. ai. and shot at 2 a. m., and 
the heart of the world turned from Germany with 
loathing. "All's fair in love and war" may be 
good poetry, but it's poor practice. 

Romain Rolland, the well-known French biog- 
rapher, musical critic and novelist, said, four years 
before this war began, in discussing Germany: 
"Take note, I am no enemy of Germany. I love 
her old musicians too well, and her poets — above 
all, Goethe, whom I admire more than any artist 
of the nineteenth century. What I do not pardon 
Germany is having betrayed her idealism. It is 
not that Germany has been victorious. It is that 
Germany has abused her victory. In 1870 she 
conquered by arms first rank in Europe. She has 
not been worthy of it. What vital word has she 
brought us? None! She has crushed us under 
material force. No moral force has radiated from 
her. She left us without light. That light we shall 
rekindle without her, and, if need be, against her." 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 29 

These words from the author of "J^^^ Christophe" 
rise to the subHme force of a prophecy! A greater 
than Rolland wrote, "The world through its wis- 
dom knew not God." "For the wisdom of this 
world is foolishness with God!" Many of us who 
love art and science sit with tear-dimmed eyes and 
see in the awful light of this ungodly war the curs- 
ing blight of such gifts of the Teutonic mind as 
the pessimism of Schopenhauer, the superman of 
Neitsche with his scorn and hatred for such weak 
things as sympathy and sentiment, the might that 
makes right of Treitschke, the monism of Haeckel 
and the destructive higher criticism of Strauss, 
Harnack and Wellhausen. If this does not sober 
the world, and particularly those of us in this 
country, then what will? 

This war has proven that treaties are just bits 
of paper, to be held inviolate so long as interests 
do not conflict, and to be violated when interests 
do. A nation's word is in ratio as good as a 
nation's ideal, no more, no less. This is not cynical, 
but simple fact. We do well to look to ourselves 
as to ideals and treaties, lest we, too, "join the ruck 
of the nations" ! 

One lesson has already gone home to us, that of 
our utter, sublime unpreparedness. We are rubbing 
our eyes and trying, in some way, to bring out of 
the disorder of an even more intense individualism 
than that of England, order. We are, as a nation, 
possessed of pleasure and money-mad. Government 
reports show that 98 per cent, of our people live 
from hand to mouth, and that a loss of work means 



30 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

pauperism for all but two per cent. Pork-barrel poli- 
tics has us crippled! Our water-ways are a joke. 
Investigation has made the ungodly revelation that 
the foul stream of sex prostitution, political corrup- 
tion and poverty has its springs in commerce and 
industry. And we call ourselves a Christian nation. 

What shall our program for preparedness be? 
Let's get down to the bed-rock of society and build 
aright. To build on the sand is to court disaster. 

All slum districts and tenement rookeries must 
be wiped out! The national prohibition of "booze" 
must be enacted! Let Uncle Sam get out of the 
liquor business and stay out, by wiping it out! 

A nation-wide, forty-eight-hour week to begin 
with! A system of military and physical training, 
modeled upon the Australian plan and adapted to 
our independent way of talking and acting. Let 
this training go into our homes and public schools. 
Cheyenne in the West, Boston in the East, and 
Charleston in the South, have proven the practical 
worth of military training in the public schools. Aus- 
tralia has done, and is doing it, and, if they can, 
we can. The vocational plan for an industrialized 
army of Charles Johnson Post should be actualized 
now. *To-day is the day of salvation." Switzer- 
land is the oasis of peace amid the maelstrom of 
war simply because she had a citizen army that 
made that Republic a prepared Republic. Prussian 
militarism was far too astute to invite Swiss wrath, 
backed up by half a million citizen soldiers, trained 
to the minute, and prepared from childhood to de- 
fend "our country" ! Are the Switzers any smarter 



THE EUROPEAN WAR 31 

than we Yankees? Citizen soldiers fighting for 
hearth and home are invincible. Cromwell's Iron- 
sides proved that in England, but she did not profit 
by it. Our ragged Continentals demonstrated it 
again both to the mother country as well as to this, 
but neither nation has profited by it. The time has 
come to put experience into practice. The right of 
suffrage indissolubly involves the duty of service. 
He is not worthy of the honey of suffrage who is 
afraid to enter the beehive of service. Our greatest 
foe is from within, not from without. There is a 
deadly cancer consuming the vitals of physical and 
social power. Of over forty thousand applicants 
for army and navy enlistments in 1915, only one 
man of every eleven was physically fit for enlist- 
ment; this, too, with a lowered standard for enlist- 
ment. Venereal diseases and "booze" are enemies 
against which there must be war to the death. 

Maternity must not only be held sacred, but 
must be protected, certainly, by first-rank medical 
attention, and, if needs be, by pension. Instead of 
awaiting the howl of the dogs of war, to call for 
the flower of the nation, let us make this nation 
all flower! 

For preparedness Government ownership of all 
public utilities is imperative. Let Uncle Sam take 
over the express companies and the railroads as a 
starter, with the telegraph lines for good weight. 
The big interests frown at all who dare to be so 
presumptuous as to even suggest such a wicked idea 
as Government ownership! Yet these same "dear" 
interests who have the welfare of big business at 



32 THE EUROPEAN WAR 

heart stop at nothing to further their ends; be it a 
State legislature, federal judgeship, United States 
Senator or Cabinet officer, they all make good tools 
for entrenched wrong as found in big business. 

Democratize our diplomacy and put diplomats 
and consuls strictly upon a basis of merit and 
efficiency. 

The budget system to finance this nation must be 
inaugurated, the sooner the better! The pork 
barrel must go. Those who howl against Govern- 
ment ownership and the budget system as "danger- 
ous doctrine" have their hands in the other fellow's 
pocket. The selfish greed for power, and their lust 
for profit, make them ready to swear fellowship 
with Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold. All such 
would crucify our country on the cross of special 
privilege and private gain. When, in the providence 
of God, this nation had its birth, its destinies were 
dedicated under the slogans of "No taxation without 
representation," and, what is even greater, "Equal 
rights to all, and special privileges for none." We 
have committed these to memory, now let's commit 
them to practice. The great change is at hand. 
The old competitive system is dying. Civilization 
has reached the breaking-point. In the light of 
God's providence many of us see the full dawning 
of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man 
and the motherhood of woman. "Thy kingdom 



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